Posted by: Jena McGregor on September 15, 2007

Whether or not you agree with Robert Reich’s controversial commentary this morning in the Wall Street Journal that CEOs deserve their sky-high pay, if you’re a director on the compensation committee of a board, it’s an issue you constantly wrestle with. And now that the SEC has begun reviewing how well companies adhered to last year’s new rules for further disclosure of executive pay—and asking some to provide more information on their still convoluted disclosures—it’s more important than ever for directors to make sure they’re adequately complying with the SEC’s new rules.

For those who want a further gut check that they’re following the rules, check out this set of tools I was sent the other day from World of Work, an international association of HR professionals. They include a PDF, a spreadsheet, and an online tool that purports to help comp committee members and HR folks make sure their “executive compensation plan hold[s] up to today’s unprecedented media and regulatory scrutiny” (read: avoid embarrassing headlines). No word on whether or not the tools give advice for burying details like this.

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